Who do you want to be when you grow up?

You need to know what you value now in order to know what you want later

Growing up is hard, love.

Otherwise, everyone would do it.

Kim Harrison (American author)

The other day my son refused to do his homework. I almost got cross to make him do it, but that just doesn't work with this boy (and, admittedly, it's probably not the best approach anyway...)

After thinking about it for a while I asked him who he wants to be when he grows up. His response was automatic: "A fighter-pilot"

"O.K." I said, "do fighter-pilots need to know maths?"

"Of course" he replied, and that was the end of that little parental hurdle. He got straight to work.

It's an ancient knowledge that the future we are living into defines our actions and thoughts in the present. The more conscious you can be about the future you want, the more power (and freedom) you have.

When I was younger I used to run a coaching program literally called "create the future" and that's what we did, a kind of manifestation approach. With age, I've discovered that what you want changes - your values change - and so does the vision of your future. It's both inexorable and appropriate, and it is profoundly associated with the stage of life you are at, essentially your age.

To consciously create a future requires a good understanding of the things you most value right now

So, "who do I want to become" presupposes an understanding of what is truly important to you right now... and that is not always as simple a question as one might suppose!

Why? because values are not free: they come in packages, cultural, familial and social packages. Some of the things you assume are important to you may not actually be what you want, you're choosing them because you think you should. Other values are just emerging and are hard to distinguish clearly. These are the things that pull you along you Leitmotif, and clarifying them is a large part of the work we are doing in the Midlife Creation program.

Here's the work:

Give yourself a score in each of these four realms for how important to it is to you. Remember, the trick is to score honestly, not what you think it should be:

Give yourself a score in each of these four realms for how important to it is to you. Remember, the trick is to score honestly, not what you think it should be:

__ Social

__ Family

__ Professional

__ Personal/spiritual

Which has the highest score?

Do you think it has changed from where it was previously (5, 10, 20 years ago)?

If you were being honest, are there scores here you wouldn’t want to tell everyone (this is a good indication you were being honest 😊).

Here’s the kicker: is your life now (where you spend your time) consistent with how you scored?

That’s where to look!

If you like this/think it's useful, please share the love ...

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready to look at new ways to take charge of the second half …. here are here are four ways we can help:

1. Request some articles on how to take charge of the second half of life by discovering you Leitmotif (the recurring theme of your life) email me

3. Get a free pre-order of our book (just pay shipping). It’s called “Midlife Creation: how to take charge of the second half of your life. Just email “BOOK PLEASE” and I’ll send you a copy when it is published (around December).

4. If you want to ask some questions or get a sense of how to start looking for your own Leitmotif you can book a quick private chat with me HERE(pls note you can't register into a program this way, but you can check me out and see if we click)